Plexus Stills #1 - 4

Limited Edition Digital Prints, Edition of 5. Plexus sits within a body of work collectively titled ‘Invasive Species’, which explores environments and relationships shaped by an "exotifying" gaze. The series attempts to internalize or reconcile existing in “paradise” when we are bound by the lived realities of that space. The limitations we have all experienced over the course of 2020 and 2021 so far have added another layer to what it means to be confined, not only by shorelines and external expectations but to the very narrow scope of our homes, minds, and physical beings. Plexus arose from my exacerbated experience of restriction. It draws on biological plexuses as hidden, intricately branching internal networks of vessels or nerves that connect to keep a body operative and aligned. In some meditative or religious practices, the solar plexus chakra is also the focal point of the body which is responsible for confidence, self-esteem and being in control of your life and free will. All of these concepts have been thrown into more disarray than usual; Barbados and the world have been confronted with circumstances which have exerted strain on mental and physical health in ways that we could not run from or ignore, inciting feelings of powerlessness. The beaded shells – used in this series as symbols of life cycles – contract, stagnate and fade while haunting, distorted sounds recorded from my limited surroundings grow louder and more invasive. A web grows in their place, something which keeps me alive, yet remaining trapped by circumstance, and marked by objects that allude to biological cycles and the monthly passage of time. This plexus holds a necessary duality: a system representing a functional body, but one prone to being ruled by frayed nerves, as the constriction and anxiety around the state of affairs remained.